~ A Journal of Democracy and Public Affairs

Fed Circus comes to town

Feds elicit another ‘I love it!’ You create an agency, Consumer Finance Protection Bureau, accountable to no overseer, and it really is accountable to no one! Bureau chief Richard Cordray decides he’s had enough, and now we have dueling successors! What I wouldn’t give to see the Fed Circus go on the road. The wagons would roll in to that grassy spot outside of town, the wranglers would set up the tent, and off we go with great entertaining acts from our friends in government.

The Ringmaster, His Orangeness, holds his whip in one hand and Twitter feed in the other. He has dozens of high-energy clowns who run all over the performance area, dumping water on each other, occasionally turning to the Ringmaster to shout, “You fucking moron.” His Orangeness shouts back, “Get that son of a bitch off the field!” The audience doesn’t get it at first, until they realize the performers think they’re into serious work! They don’t think they’re funny! No one even told them they’re in a circus, so they all think they’re doing a good job!

Once the audience understands the gimmick, they don’t know whether to pull the tent down, get up and leave, or laugh. They laugh for a while, but the fake jokes and foul language become a little tiresome, so they start to fidget a bit. They pull out their fidget spinners, and before you know it they call out to the kids, “It’s time to go!” The kids, who never figured out the joke anyway, yell back, “But we want to see that guy with the orange hair whale on that clown! We know he’s going to do it!” Dad says, “Alright, three more minutes. If he hasn’t clobbered him by then, we have to leave. Okay?”

After an hour and a half, everyone has returned home to an early dinner. At first the circus performers don’t notice the bleachers have emptied. The Ringmaster runs around the ring with his Twitter feed and his whip, but after a while the clowns make for the exits, too. He starts to feel a little foolish, mutters about his difficult job, and of course brags about his great Fed Circus. Then he sits down with one of the wranglers in the empty tent, asks him to pat him on the back, and remarks, “Well, we made this town great again.” “Sure did,” the wrangler replies, “time to pack up and go to the next big show.”